Sister Amanda DeMille

family and friends, as always missionary work is filled with ups and downs, but it moves forward! here are the highlights from last week.

It was a slow week for Nickolaiv, but a good week for Kherson. We met with Mamma Luba a couple of times, and she is doing great. We talked about faith with her and she loved it! She has so much faith and prays so fervently, i love it! We have talked with her about baptism, but she is just hesitant because it is a serious decision. We are moving forward with her though and love it! We met with our hippy investigator Irina, and she kind of dropped us. We have talked to her about baptism the last few times because she told us she knows our church is true and the Book of Mormon is true...but she told us she will never get baptized into any church because she thinks there should just be peace and harmony and that churches shouldn't argue. We tried to explain how the church would bring peace and harmony and that baptism is our gateway to heaven, but she wasn't having it..we don't know what else to do with her, but we will see! So the woman that we met in the graveyard a few weeks ago (Larissa) she has been coming to church every week, but was way confused that we wanted to meet other than church haha. So we sat her down and explained it to her and asked her if we could help her prepare for baptism in our church and she said yes! We will start the lessons with her this week and it will be great, she loves all the missionaries and the church.

There is this woman in Nickolaiv named Sveta and she sells shoes on the side of the street near our house. We were walking by and she asked about our books, so we gave her one. Well, Sveta has a lot of friends who wanted this book haha so we have given like 4 books of mormon away because of her haha! It's awesome. Every time we walk by, she is like "My girls! You are so beautiful! I love this book that you gave me!" haha she is great. We will start meeting with her in October when she is done with work. We have decided just to be more bold and ask everyone if they will meet with us, then ask them if they will get baptized or prepare for baptism. No results yet really, but soon we hope!

We got to do service last week for a member in Kherson, and I realized how much joy comes from serving other people. She just kept telling us the whole time how much we were helping her, how grateful she was because she can't do it by herself, and how much she cared that we cared to help her. I love getting to serve the people in Ukraine not only with physical work around their house, but as well as the gospel. I see how people lighten up when the missionaries help them, and service brings such a close bond and helps people feel the love of Christ. I truly love it and I'm so thankful to serve them! It's such a priviledge to be in the service of God and I'm so thankful for this experience. Sister Johnson and I really have grown so much in this area, and have felt the love of Christ through the wonderful members and investigators here. I'm so thankful for it!! Sorry this is a short email this week, sometimes the week goes by in a blur and I can't remember everything that happened. But everything is moving forward and I love this work! Thank you for all of your support and prayers. I love you all!

Sister DeMille